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Start your family history Story Blog to write your stories one at a time. Use our story prompts to elicit memories in all life stages, milestones, and wisdom, etc. Share your stories with only family or promote your blog in our public library. Print your legacy stories in an heirloom Legacy Book.

Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams
Chronicles of a Footloose Forester
By Dick Pellek
Are You Bragging or Complaining?
This chronicle is for you, Red Lee. You are in the center of that mental photograph that flashes in my mind, since that day in early autumn of 1955 when...

Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams
Chronicles of a Footloose Forester
By Dick Pellek
Moss and Mumblety-peg
The game of mumblety-peg is so old that even Mark Twain mentioned it as one of the favorites enjoyed by young boys. It was outdoors, in the summer, and played in the grass. To...

I was born in Portsmouth, Ohio on January 15, 1931, during the Depression years. My mom and dad, Ruth Isabel Thrickmorton and Walter Leroy Arnold, were living with my dad's grandparents, Minnie Burkhart and Adolph Arnold, at 814 Eighth Stree, Portsmouth, Ohio. My great-grandparents had built the house in approximately 1892....

I was born in Portsmouth, Ohio on January 15, 1931, during the Depression years. My mom and dad, Ruth Isabel Thrickmorton and Walter Leroy Arnold, were living with my dad's grandparents, Minnie Burkhart and Adolph Arnold, at 814 Eighth Stree, Portsmouth, Ohio. My great-grandparents had built the house in approximately 1892....

On the road…again!
Afghanistan to Zambia
Chronicles of a Footloose Forester
By Dick Pellek
Can We Remember? Do We Remember? Should We Remember?
People who think often about the past engage in subconscious peeking into their personal histories. They see flashes of happy times, stressful times, sad times,...

While driving my jaunty Explorer Sportrac, which my wife has named “Sassy Red,” to the dealer some thirty miles away for its scheduled maintenance, I passed some long-familiar scenes. My mind began drifting, conjuring an image of life as it was sixty to seventy years ago. God, how I long...

PREFACE: This is the second memoir of a multi-year experience that had a definite impact on my later life. I want to stress that I am sharing these experiences in an effort to give some testimony to the way God has worked in my life and not in any sort...

In rummaging through my bookshelf recently selecting books I could donate to our church’s garage sale I came across a collection of stories my next oldest brother, Gene, had written as a columnist for the weekly newspaper in the town in which he grew up He grew up living in...

Preface: This is the first "chapter" of what will be a "quadrilogy" chronicling a part of my teen years that had a profound effect on my later life. I do not offer these in any kind of "I'm proud of this" boasting way. If I have any motive other than...

In the fall of 1956 a young woman with four small children moved to Oskaloosa, Iowa, where my family lived. I don’t remember her name and wouldn’t divulge it if I did, so I’ll call her Carol. She came from another State, where she and her children had been battered...

Trick or . . . . trick
Halloween in the late 20th, Early 21st Century is a "holiday" that has completely metamorphosed from the form it had at mid-20th Century. If a teen-aged boy of those days were somehow magically time-traveled to Halloween night 2014 and saw little kids going...

On the road...again!
Afghanistan to Zambia
Chronicles of a Footloose Forester
By Dick Pellek
This Was Home For More Than 55 Years
A picture can prompt 10,000 words
this photo was rejected for inclusion in a book of memoirs because of presumed copyright law violation
At first glance, ...

Perhaps you’ve heard the expression: “Nobody wants to read your diary except your mother,” but if that were true, why do so many of us love autobiographies? Is it because we feel less isolated when somebody else shares his or her secrets?
In Diane Keaton’s book: “Let’s Just Say it...

The Old Cherry Tree
When I was eight years old we moved into the house that my father’s grandparents had built in 1882. Many of the plants and trees they’d put in over the years were still thriving. There was an abundance of hollyhocks, peonies, lily of the valley,...

On the road …again!
Afghanistan to Zambia
Chronicles of a Footloose Forester
By Dick Pellek
A Short Botanical History Of Home
We youngsters might have taken the trees for granted when we were very young, but as we grew older those trees around the house became keepsakes. The old Pellek...

On the road…again!
Afghanistan to Zambia
Chronicles of a Footloose Forester
By Dick Pellek
Always An Amateur
Life can be so disheartening when you grow up without good looks, athletic ability, high intelligence, or with physical limitations. Poor posture and annoying mannerisms also add to the handicaps that...

When I was 10 years old my parents sold their house in Orem and bought a new one in American Fork. It was a brand new house on an acre and a third. Including our house, there were 4 new house, next to each other in the middle of...

On the road …again!
Afghanistan to Zambia
Chronicles of a Footloose Forester
By Dick Pellek
It's Saturday, Where Is The Yardstick?
There were seven kids in the Pellek household, so there was plenty of mischief under our roof, and elsewhere. Five boys and two girls kept...